


Ballycumber*

by Colourofsaying



Category: Young Wizards - Duane, due South
Genre: Crossover, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-15
Updated: 2010-02-15
Packaged: 2017-10-07 06:53:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/62540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Colourofsaying/pseuds/Colourofsaying
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kit and Nita, seeking local expertise, work with Fraser and Ray Kowalski on a task of galactic significance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ballycumber*

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Greeniron](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Greeniron).



            It was raining. It was, in fact, often raining. Rain is the natural result of living near a lake, and this town, like many others, was not exempt from the weather. It washed down the asphalt streets, hissed from trees and rang from gutters and the various discarded objects commonly found in suburban neighborhoods. Apart from a few unhappy-looking students splashing umbrella-less down the sidewalk, the streets were empty. No one was stirring, not even those who might - in the right circumstances, if it would go unnoticed - have no problem at all with the rain. Everything seemed frozen by the rain, transformed into a painting.

            It is generally recognized that such a circumstance generally indicates that life will soon become much more exciting.

In a white wooden faculty house approximately seven minutes’ walk from the university’s gate, Nita looked up from the computer as Kit started to remove his rain gear. She couldn’t see him yet, since that would require looking through both the door to her office and the kitchen wall, but the thud of boots falling to the floor and the creak of the closet door were sufficient indicators of his presence.

            “Still raining out there?” she called. The green curtains over the window in her office were very thick. She hadn’t looked outside since eating her peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich over the sink at lunch. The translation of Gallifrey One’s webpage into Gilrth was – well, going slowly was putting it mildly. She still wasn’t sure how one would go about translating the word ‘crossplay’ into the language of a society that lacked socially-recognized genders and certainly had no gender-identifying clothing. Also, thinking about Children of Earth still made her want to cry or kick someone, so she was avoiding working on that panel.

            “Buckets!” he yelled back cheerfully. “Hopefully the kids’ reports stayed dry.”

            “Like you would cry a river of tears over that.” Having to grade undergraduate papers was one of the many reasons Nita’d left the academic world after college – today was _not_ one of the days she had to tell herself she didn’t actually want to spend her non-wizarding time arguing with her colleagues. She stood up and stretched, kicking her chair back under the desk. Enough for today. Opening the door and walking into the kitchen, she saw Kit standing by the sink, a glass of milk in his hand. “How was class today?”

            “Nobody got blown up or electrocuted while pretending to listen to me. Disappointing.” He grinned and gulped his milk. Nita, who knew for a fact that his lectures were the most attended in the Engineering department at Northwest, snorted. “What do you want for dinner?”

            “Hadn’t thought about it.”

            Kit eyed her.

            “Vegetables.” He decided. “You had a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich for lunch today, didn’t you?”

            “I like them!” Nita protested. “I had a banana, too.”

            “Speaking of, did you hear from your sister today?” Kit rinsed out his glass and put it in the drainer, then rooted under the sink for the dog food. “

            “Yeah, she’s still trying to convince Roshaun to put in bananas on Wellakh. He seems to think that there’s no need for a whole plantation.” Nita opened the refrigerator and eyed the contents mournfully. Now that she’d finally stopped staring at the screen, her stomach had decided it was high time to remind her that it really was quite fond of food. The contents stubbornly failed to turn into a meal. She heard the rattle of dog food poured into the bowls. “What about working out something with a restaurant’s refrigerator?”__

            “Oh, come on, it’s not that bad. And you like cooking, you know you do.” Kit wandered over and stood behind her shoulder, thoughtfully considering the depths of the refrigerator. “One of these days she’s going to convince him to watch Doctor Who, and then he’ll realize the innate goodness of bananas… how’s the translation coming?”

            “It’s coming along. Sort of. I’m thinking of it this way – it’s helping me work out my anger and unresolved issues over Children of Earth.” They watched the food do nothing for a little while longer. Gilly and Sanders sauntered in, presumably coming from their favorite spot in front of the heater, and mournfully began to crunch their food.

            “How about rice and, uh, baked fish?” Kit suggested. “With steamed broccoli.”

            “Sounds good. Might as well make miso soup, too.” Nita said. “It’s raining. You should have soup when it’s raining.”

            Kit pulled the broccoli out of the crisper and handed it to her with a flourish. She took it, and carried it off to the counter to dismember, setting her manual on the ledge to get it out of the way.

            “Did Ellie show up today?” she asked.

            “No, I think she’s still doing the research.” Kit said, pulling the miso out from under the sink. “Can’t believe they built a Chenoo into the seawall.”

            “They do look a lot like rocks in their dormant state… I wonder why this one was dormant for so long?”

            “Probably it woke up, saw it was underwater, and went back to sleep. They don’t like to make a fuss, generally speaking.” The water started to boil. “So it ought not be too difficult to talk it into helping repair the seawall when it leaves.”

            On the ledge, Nita’s manual began to glow. Kit’s, trapped inside his briefcase, started singing _Viva la Vida_. The soup spoon, dropped abruptly back into the soup at the sudden noise, splattered soup across the stove. Gilly bounced over and started licking at the floor in hope of some stray drops.

            “Damn.” Kit said grumpily, and went to shut it off. “Neets?”

            “You finish, I’ll handle it.” She grabbed her manual, flipped it open to the relevant page, and began to read.

  
 

 

            In their usual booth at Joan’s Place, Fraser and Ray were eating pancakes. Well. Fraser was eating pancakes. Ray was trying, with every fiber of his being, to not reach over and flip the pancakes down all that red serge. It wasn’t exactly that he was annoyed at Fraser – well, he was, but hey, everyone. Always annoyed at Fraser. Or wanting to jump him. Or both, usually. Now was definitely one of those usual times. So he wanted to push the pancakes onto Fraser because he was mad at him, and he wanted to strip off the syrup-soaked clothes and lick the remaining drops from – he was mad at Fraser. And it would be fun.

            Fortunately, before he gave into the impulse, he found himself distracted by the familiar, unpleasant sensation of being watched.

            “Fraser?” he asked. “Is it just me, or is there something funny going on?”

            “Well, Ray, I would hardly classify it as entertaining, but no, I do not believe that the sensation you are referring to is limited to your own person.”

            Really, it couldn’t be _that_ hard to get syrup out of those weird pants.

            “Think it might be something we ought to, you know, check out? Like, now?” he asked. “Because if we don’t check it out, it might check us out. Whatever it is.”

            “I think you will find that ‘it’ is essentially harmless and, having noticed that we recognized ‘it’, is at this very moment approaching the table.” Ray could hear the little marks. Taunting him. He gave them the finger under the table, and dumped some more chocolate in his coffee. When he looked up, he saw a couple, average in everything except for the bit where they’d _both_ been staring, coming towards them.

            Fraser rose to meet them. Ray remained seated. He was only scowling a little, but Fraser kicked him anyway. _It only takes a moment, Ray_. Fraser’d never gotten the hang of the good cop/bad cop thing.

            “Constable Benton Fraser, RCMP.” Fraser nodded at them politely. Before he could continue, Ray interrupted.

            “Detective Ray Kowalski. He – “ Ray jerked his thumb in Fraser’s direction, “- came to Chicago on the trail of his father’s killers and would love to tell you all about it, and also some Inuit stories if you have a _lot_ of time, later. The wolf’s under the table. Who’re you?”

            “I’m Nita Callahan, and this is my partner, Kit Rodriguez. We’re - uh, Kit?” The woman – Ms. Callahan – looked at her partner for help. Ray got interested. People who weren’t sure how to explain what they were and yet were willing to talk to the police were – in general, very interesting. Or crazy. Or both.

            “Something that has to do with the – rather interesting – being sitting next to Constable Fraser.” Rodriguez said calmly. “Hello, sir.”

            Rodriguez was looking at the empty spot next to Fraser.

            “There’s no - .” Ray started to say, irritable. But Fraser was looking at the floor, with his ‘I know exactly what you are talking about and I would prefer to keep pretending that whatever it is does not exist’ face, which was the same face he made when Ray did the really rude gesture with his fist and his thumb. Or when Ray asked if those were really diaries he was reading. They were, as it turned out. Just not his father’s. And not, um, meant for other people to see. Probably. “There’s someone there and I can’t see him.”

            “Yes, essentially. Although I can do something about that. May we sit down?” Callahan asked. Fraser was still standing.

            “Yes, ma’am, of course. Don’t mind Diefenbaker – he will extract himself if he feels overly compressed.” He turned, and slid further into the booth, leaving about a foot and a half between himself and the window. The red vinyl squeaked as he moved across it. Rodriguez slid in after him. Ray reluctantly made room for Callahan beside him.

            Across the table, Rodriguez said, “Would you mind being a little less opaque, just for this gentleman here? Ah, I see. Well, it _is_ his son’s friend – an exception, maybe? Thank you very much.” He drew a few things in the condensation rings on the table, queer shapes, like that Arabic writing he’d seen in the museum when Fraser dragged him there to look at some old paper.

            Ray wondered if Rodriguez was crazy like Fraser. Then an old Mountie appeared in the booth next to his partner, and Ray thought he might need to reevaluate Fraser’s level of insanity.

            “How – what?” he demanded.

            “Well, actually, I’d kind of like to know that myself,” said Rodriguez, dryly. “I’ve never heard of a personal gate to Timeheart before.” Ray gave him the look of ‘what the hell was that, bro?’ and Rodriguez added, “I really was talking to the air.”

            Which meant he had to pull out the ‘not helpful, dude’ face.

            “Although it’s not impossible, in theory. I mean, we go to Timeheart in our sleep often enough. The interesting thing is that it works, mm, corporeally as well. And both ways, too, for – is it just him, or anyone that can see you?” Callahan was leaning intently over the table, her hair tucked behind her ear.

            “Just him.” The old Mountie said. “It’s in the blood. By the way, Yank, I’m Bob Fraser, Benton’s father. And before you ask, I’ve been around for years.”

            Ray gulped. He’d suspected as much.

            “I thought he’d gone at the end of our trip to Canada,” Fraser said apologetically. “But then he came back.”

            “And weren’t you over the moon,” Bob retorted. “You’re okay, for a Yank. But you better not do that with Benton’s belt again. It’s hard to get neat’s-foot oil out of sheets, or so Caroline and I discovered.”

            “_Dad_.”

            If he hadn’t been blushing so hard, it would’ve been a lot easier to appreciate the sight of Fraser acting like a sixteen-year-old girl. Ray moved the salt out of a puddle of syrup, and nearly caused a small avalanche of jam and creamers.

            “Anyway, I’m here because one of your Powers knocked up a fairly recent ancestress of ours.” Bob explained. “I hear tell you two know that Power pretty well. Went by the name of Peach for a while?”

            Rodriguez made a face. Callahan grinned, and pushed the hair sliding back into her face behind one ear.

            “We’ve had a few encounters with that one, yeah,” she said. “It liked to bite Kit’s ear.”

            “Wait – he’s a god?” Ray asked. That would explain a lot. Like the _licking things_. Gods were unpredictable like that. Or at least they’d all been in that book of Stella’s he’d borrowed once. He’d read the entire afternoon, and he hated reading. Weird shit.

            “No, just kin,” Bob said reassuringly. “Well, mostly.”

            “So, can you, like, throw lightning bolts?”

            “Not that I am aware of, no.” Fraser replied.

            “Um, and you don’t want to hang out of trees or pull your eye or anything?”

            “…Ray?”

            “Can you make fruit turn into wine? Because if you can, buddy, you’ve been holding out on me. Or levitate? Or fly? Dude, I _so_ could’ve used knowing that when we were _falling out of a plane_. Would’ve helped to know we weren’t going to die _horrible painful deaths._” Ray pointed accusingly at Fraser. “You can! I can see it!”

            “I regret to inform you, Ray, that you have seen the reach and extent of my abilities.” Fraser had that face on, the one that said ‘you are crazy and this is coming from someone who makes puffin faces at babies’.

            “Dude, you make puffin faces at babies.” Ray told him firmly. “Vecchio told me. So do not pull that face on me.”

            Fraser made the ‘I know exactly what you are talking about but I am not going to say so because I am embarrassed’ face. Possibly it was actually ‘you are ridiculous’ and not ‘I am embarrassed’ face, but Ray tried to think positive. It was good enough. Ray decided to let him off the hook. And then he remembered that they had visitors. And then he remembered that he was annoyed at Fraser. And then he remembered the thing about the pancakes. And the syrup. He scowled, and Fraser opened his mouth like he was going to start explaining exactly why Ray was wrong. Again.

            “So, what did you guys want?” he said, cutting Fraser off. Fraser twitched, and shut his mouth, glaring at Ray. Ha. Worked every time. “Because if it was just to show me Fraser’s dad, I so could’ve done without.”

            “To begin with, we’re wizards.” Rodriguez told him.

            Ray thought about it.

            “That would be why the sudden appearance of Fraser’s ghost dad,” he said, and then remembered that the ghost dad was, as it happened, still there. “Sir. And you just talk things into happening?”

            “It’s a little more complicated than that.” Callahan said. “For one, that wasn’t English you heard. You just thought it was.”

            “Hunh.” Sure sounded like English to him. Maybe with an accent, which he hadn’t noticed due to Rodriguez’ having this New York accent like a kick in the head in the first place.

            “And the other complicated thing is that the wizard thing takes place across this universe and in all the other ones too.” Rodriguez added. “Also we fight evil.”

            Kit, Ray decided, was cool. Probably Nita was too. “Evil fighting. Awesome. So, why’re you here?”

            “_Ray_.” Fraser said, catching at the tiny little pause in conversation. “I’m sure they’ll tell us at the appropriate time.”

            It was fortunate that they were in company, because the pancakes thing. He was really, really getting into the pancake idea. And not because of the syrup, either.

            “Um, a planet got blown up by the Lone Power.” Nita told them, eyeing Ray a little warily. Possibly he was glaring a little too much. He toned it down to the level where only crazy super-sensing Mounties could see it. “And we’ve been given a caseload of refugees. We needed a local for them to talk to, someone without magic so they don’t get dependent.”

            “Who can help them if they fuck up,” Kit said shortly. “Or at least make sure that they know what fucking up is, and that they know what to do once they have.”

            Fraser started to speak, but Ray beat him to it. Of course Fraser would offer. But Ray could stick his neck out too, whatever the Mountie thought.

            “We’ll help. When do they get here?” he said, and raised an eyebrow at his partner. Fraser smiled at him, the really good smile, with the teeth and the eye-crinkles that made his eyes look way too blue for Chicago in the rain.

            Ray smiled back, the best smile he had, and contemplated the mysteries of soft gray light gleaming off the shine of syrup on pale, pale skin.

  
 

 

            The two men they’d met were as good as their word – a few days after that meeting in Chicago, Nita received a thick envelope from the postman. Inside was a stack of real estate listings and notebook paper, thoroughly marked over. She looked at the top brochure (_crap neighborhood – Ray, there are many fine and – upstanding, yeah, I know, except when they’re down falling – that’s unnecessarily judgmental, Ray_) and started laughing.

            “Kit, come have a look at these!”

            “Look at what?” His voice came out of the basement, and she frowned, momentarily distracted. Sanders whined beside her, looking up at the paper. Absently, she tilted the paper down so Sanders could see.

            “Kit, are you trying to talk the walls into being mildew-repellant again? Remember what happened last time?” Last time, the walls and mildew had been convinced that Kit was trying to break them up, and had staged a sneak attack in the middle of the night, covering the entire house by morning. Fortunately the rest of the house was not as fond of mildew as the basement, and they’d been able to talk it into returning, but Kit had been sneezing for weeks.

            “No!” Kit said, and came up. _Looking good,_ Nita thought. _Very, very good_. “I was working on the generator, seeing if it wanted to try alternate sources of power.”

            “What’s it think?” Kit was wearing his working-on-the-house clothes, the ones entropy had been hard at work on. Entropy, Nita thought, was occasionally in her favor. Not that she’d be telling the Lone Power that, and probably It hadn’t been thinking about that either when It invented entropy. Then again, she’d seen It look far too intrigued by Dairine’s ratty /(bb|[^b]{2})/ T-shirt, last time it had come around, and she wasn’t completely sure that it was just because it was trying to figure out the joke.

            Kit tugged a sheet of notepaper out from under the brochures. Sanders vanished in the direction of the radiator.

            “It says that it’s willing to consider it, and asked if we’d thought about green roofs.” He unfolded it, and started snickering. “They’re worse than Tom and Carl.”

            “What, what?” She walked behind him and put her chin on his shoulder. “Wow. You’re right.”

            The list on the left side of the paper was obviously Fraser’s, in black handwriting so neat it looked typed. It looked like the Visitor’s Guide To Chicago webpage, with helpful commentary, punctiliously indented. Museums, parks, more parks, useful telephone numbers, concert halls, parks, libraries, the city center. More parks. And then there was Ray’s side, which looked like the flowchart of the damned, growing out from the center in increasingly frenetic swirls of green. It consisted of takeout places, dance halls, bars, gyms, and sports stadiums. There was also a little section boxed off and labeled ‘Really Romantic Things To Do/Go To With Your Significant Other Who Is Not A Girl I Know Fraser But I Was Married’.

            “He reminds me a lot of Dairine.” Kit said thoughtfully. “I wonder if they’re settling anyone on Wellakhit?”

            “Yes, I think so, but Roshaun’s handling it – Dairine’s due in a couple of weeks, you know.” Nita leafed through the ads, thinking about her sister, her sister’s husband, nieces, nephew, and unknown. It seemed like there was a lot of empty housing in one of the older parts of town – Fraser indicated that the buildings were well-constructed, and Ray that the crime rate had been sky high, but that recent developments, also known as gang wars, had pretty much cleared the neighborhood out of both crime and citizens. Hunh. She wandered into the kitchen and started heating the water for tea.

            “It’s amazing that they got that many people off the planet before it imploded.” Kit wandered in behind her, thumped down into a chair. “That’s worse than our Ordeal by far – keeping the Lone Power busy long enough to evacuate a planet? When there’s no hope of actually _stopping_ it?”

            “It was a nice planet, too. Not the mud and rock kind, no offense to mud and rock planets.” Nita said. “Their trees. I saw them burn.”

            Kit swung around and faced her. “You didn’t tell me that.”

            “You were at work!” Nita protested. “I took a nap. And that was all it was – the burning trees, under the sky.”

            “No laughter?”

            “Nope, this was more your Intergalactic Mental TiVo type dream, not precog.” Nita said dryly. “I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a warning or anything, just one of the perks of the lucid dreaming field.”

            The last time she’d had a simple recording of an event play through her sleeping mind, it had signaled a change in her abilities. Reruns before the new season, Dairine had called it. It hadn’t been terrifying at all, just a salutation to the New Year’s sun on Demisiv. After that, she’d started dreaming the dreams of everyone she’d touched during the day. It had been… confusing, at first. Nita was starting to wonder if the Powers were directing her into a more people-oriented field.

            “Think you’re going to develop something else?” Kit asked. Sometimes, Nita wondered if he had a graphing device in his head, with tabs for her life and alerts for similar occurrences. He never seemed to forget anything about her, which was normally quite sweet; sometimes it was annoying that he knew when she was going to get a headache before she did.

            “Probably.” She sat down at the table in the corner, and rested her head in her hands. The refugees were coming in two days, and she had to arrange for lodging, apartment-hunting, urban-living tutorials (okay, that wasn’t so hard – mostly it was just American currency and the use of common Earth machines, since the cities of their planet were fairly similar), and individual contacts for each family. So far, she’d gotten a list of wizards not currently on errantry drawn up, contacted half of them, snagged a powerpoint off the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services website, and translated the rest of the convention website.

            The teakettle hissed. A few moments later, Kit set her favorite mug in front of her, the one with a picture of the Milky Way galaxy on it overlaid by a blueprint of the Crossings. She sniffed. Oh, Powers. Mint and honey. Gilly stumbled in and laid her head on Nita’s knee.

            “You know, I love this job,” she said conversationally. “But sometimes, I’m really, really glad that Seniors are expected to delegate.”

            “Yes,” Kit said feelingly. “The computer hacks alone... I’ve had to ask Dairine to give a couple of the kids a quick tutorial in hacking government databases.”

            Nita laughed and looked up, cradling the hot mug in her hands.

            “She had the most unholy look of glee I have ever seen on her face,” Kit complained. “And then she told me I was doing it wrong, and grabbed Stephen and Allie and hauled them off to go convince the government’s computers to create fake IDs.”

            “As long as they can’t trace their new desktops back to us, I’m good,” she told him seriously before she was laughing too hard to speak. Dairine had, on several occasions, said that the United States government would be much the better off if it were continually reminded of the consequences of turning to the dark side.

            “I can just see the President’s face when he comes into the office in the morning, boots up his computer, and comes face-to-face with a Darth Maul thinking ‘if only I hadn’t turned to the dark side! I could’ve had hair!’” Kit scrunched up his nose thoughtfully. “Premature balding – the curse of the dark side of the Force.”

            “Maybe Darth Vader, with the caption ‘The Dark Side: Free Prosthetics For All Applicants!” Nita offered. “How’re the structural reinforcement spells coming?”

            “Not bad – I’ve got them tied into worry stones, and keyed to the names of each family. Right now, I’m working on an atmosphere-clearing spell.” He looked down at the stack of brochures. Kowalski’s comments were pretty bleak, Nita had to admit. But cheap housing in Chicago, well, it wouldn’t be easy. And as usual, the galactic charities were short on funds. Each family was getting a stipend, but the sooner they became self-sufficient, the better. “I think they’re going to need it.”

            “Yeah – although Fraser seems to think that Ray’s exaggerating.” Nita gulped her tea, and, at her insistence, tugged at Gilly’s ear. “Did you know that Stell is Ray’s ex?”

            “No – how’d you find that out?”

            “Well, we were talking about going to the new show at the planetarium when this clears up in a couple weeks – it’s a brand-new show. And I told her I’d just met up with a policeman with the same last name as her, who was partnered with a Mountie, and she started laughing.” They’d met over a case a few years ago, when Nita had been called in to translate for a prisoner from Western Europe who spoke about five words of English. She’d thought Stella looked lonely, so it seemed like a good idea to talk about the case over coffee, since you couldn’t really share all the nuances of translating in an official recording. They’d run into each other at the planetarium a few weeks later. “Seems like they had a hard time breaking up – they’d been friends since they were kids, and neither could really figure out how to work without the other.”

            “She’s good with Fraser?” Kit asked. Nita grinned. Kit had given up years ago on pretending he wasn’t interested in the lives of their friends and acquaintances. It was practically an affront to the Art, she thought, to turn a blind eye to the lives of others.

            “They didn’t hit it off at first, but she’s married to his best friend, and once his Ray – Stell apparently marries Rays – and Stell stopped dancing around each other, they got along okay.” Nita said. “You know, someday it might be worth it to tell her – I think she’d handle it well.”

            One of the more difficult parts of the Senior package was the ongoing public awareness project. As kids, they’d thought it was inconvenient, really, that no one knew about wizards – as Seniors, they’d realized that far more people knew than they’d thought. Like the psychologist at her high school, Millman, a lot of people had friends or relatives who were wizards and chose to share it. There was an organization of planets like Rirhath, where everyone knew about wizardry, and Earth’s Seniors had been working on having Earth join the alliance for the last hundred years.

            Kit nodded thoughtfully. “This might be a good opportunity, actually – let her know she’s likely to come up against some odd cases.”

            Nita looked at the stack of brochures and leaflets, now tilting haphazardly across the table. It looked back. She sighed. Under the table, Gilly whined and bumped her head against Nita’s knee.

           Well, at least it would be entertaining.

  
 

 

            Two days later, a ragtag bunch of tired, irritable former Kantha straggled out from under the oak tree and congregated on the back lawn. Nita quietly handed out drinks and snacks, talking with the refugees. Gilly and Sanders trotted sedately among the newcomers, nosing hands and dispensing licks where they felt licks were most needed.

            Most of them were young families, whose children were still small enough to absorb the culture of their new home completely. There were a few older people – among others, a lawyer specializing in galactic law, a research chemist, a librarian, a well-known Kantha artist, and an engineer Kit immediately dragged off to the corner.

            Their escort, a tired, rumpled woman with the perfect hair of someone clinging to the remains of her sanity by her fingernails, came over to where Nita was telling the parents where the puptents were.

            “Are you okay here?” she asked, running her fingers distractedly along the chain around her neck. “Only I have to get back and ferry another three groups out.”

            “We’ll be fine, I think.” Nita told her. The woman looked like she had raided an emergency bin for fresh clothes – a worn Wellakhit tunic, Earth jeans, and the foam sandals commonly seen in dollar bins at the end of summer. Without the shadowed eyes and dull skin, she would have looked like a college student making a fashion statement. “Is there anything I can get you before you leave?”

            The woman handed her a stack of folders, marked over with notes, and Nita was suddenly flooded with cold. She shivered.

            “A long hot shower and a night’s sleep would be nice,” the woman said tiredly. “But failing that, a jacket? It’s a little chilly.”

            “Be right out.” Nita hurried into the house, and grabbed a down coat out of the closet, the one with all of the power bars and dried fruit in the pockets. “Here you go. Give it to someone else when you’re done with it, okay?”

            The woman stared at her for a moment, smiled.

            “Will do. Good luck!”

            “Good luck yourself!” Nita called after her as the woman stepped into a gate and vanished from the garden. She sighed, and wrapped her arms around herself, the phantom cold still running in her bones. “Geez, what was that?”

  
 

 

            Fraser was pacing. Ray was drawing smiley faces in the crumbs on the table. He’d decided to let Fraser be the nervous one for now. They worked like that one-two punch, one always back when the other was forward.

            “Your dad here?” he asked Fraser eventually, when the rhythmic thud became a little too soothing.

            “No, he said something about doing a little repair work on the cabin, I didn’t ask,” Fraser replied distractedly. Ray watched with interest as he ran a hand through his hair. As usual, it didn’t behave quite like normal hair; it rucked up for a moment, and then settled down again.

            “Hunh. How does a cabin in Perfectville get messed up?” Ray liked messing Fraser’s hair up. Liked messing it up so Fraser had to shower before it’d do that thing again. Like it was doing now. Dief gave him a look, the one that said ‘you are as bad as I am and you don’t even have the excuse of being a dog’. He gave Dief a look right back. He was allowed to think about that if he wanted to! Although possibly Dief was right. It was like Dief and that spaniel down the road – Fraser was just too beautiful to resist.

            “I suspect my father’s conception of perfection may be slightly at odds with that of the majority of the population.” Although Fraser was working it hard enough he might just get it in that state himself, like when he wore his hat and did guard duty in the red suit in summer. And then Ray would spend the whole time they were helping people get moved in all hot and bothered. Which might be fun, really.

             Although, he was looking forward to meeting aliens again – ha, take that, all the doubters – and that would be distracting. So it might do to settle Fraser down. There were a few ways to do that. One of them was the hair-messing-up way. That was a _good _way, the best way. Another was getting all worked up himself, which wasn’t so good, because they had to pass each other on the way and that could get out of hand fast. So. Not such a good way. Besides, they were still sort of getting over that argument of a couple days ago.

             There was also the telling a story way. That way worked pretty well. Or the saving-kitteny-gang-members way, which he was trying to break Fraser of, thank you very kindly. Because with Fraser, ‘saving’ meant ‘stepping in front of their gun which Ray swore was loaded and actually sometimes was’. So he said,

             “This happen a lot in those Northwest Areas?” And then Fraser was sitting down, with a ‘well, actually, Ray’ and the little crinkle around his eyes that meant Ray was awesome (well, it said cute, but Fraser totally meant awesome, only his words didn’t go like that or something) and he was grateful for the intervention. Ray slurped his coffee and nodded at appropriate times, listening not too carefully but enough that he knew what was going on – it was one of the bad stories, with the freezing and the ice and the cannibalism.

             “I guess you haven’t done something like this before, Frase,” he interjected eventually. “Because it’s not so bad, it’s a good thing, not like – not like other stuff, okay?”

             Fraser sighed, and pulled on his cuffs. “It’s not that I am, ah, uneasy about the nature of our project.”

             “You just don’t know the methodology, right?” Ray grinned at him. Perfectionist. “Frase, if you can arrange a party for the Ice Queen, you’ll have everyone dancing in time in five minutes. Bet you.”

             And _that_ was a good look. He knew just what Fraser was thinking.

             “What will you bet me?”

             Ray leaned back, pretended to think. Rocked the chair onto its back legs. Duh. It wasn’t even a good game, lame-o, rigged pins. But they could play it like it was. Fine by him.

             “Well, it could be the dishes. I’m kind of tired of dishes.” Liar, liar. “But I was thinking air. I like air. It’s traditional. Can never have too much of it. Stores easy.”

             And then the doorbell rang, and that was the end of the moment, except that Fraser ran a finger along Ray’s mouth as he went to answer the door and oh yeah, bet was on.

             Kit and Nita were planning to pick them up, Scotty them (Ray wasn’t entirely sure what this entailed, but he suspected it would be fun, different, and not the sort of thing his colleagues usually got to do) to their house in Evanston, and then have them guide the first group of refugees to the appropriate apartment building by train so the poor bastards could start working out the evils of America’s public transportation. It had to be better on a different planet. Unless it was one of those constants. Death, public transportation, and taxes.

            “Ah, hello. Do come in.” Fraser said, holding the door open for the two wizards. “We’ll be just a moment.”

            “Have a sit while he gets his boots on, okay?” Ray said, and gestured towards the couch and the chairs at the kitchen table. “I’ll wipe up the crumbs and we’ll be good to go.”

            “Sure thing, man.” Kit said, and sat. Nita hovered for a moment – it was kind of weird, like she was trying to pick a spot only there was something else going on in her head besides looking for crumbs. Ray didn’t think she was the type to look too carefully for crumbs, not unless she was wearing real fancy clothes and the jeans she had on looked more familiar with the paintbrush than the makeup brush.

            “I took the liberty of going over the contracts with the landlord yesterday – he seemed to have made a few errors in the placement of the commas which changed the meaning quite unconscionably,” Fraser said. He was manfully trying not to gasp as he laced up his boot, which was a tricky thing, because even if you were in good shape – and boy Fraser was in good shape – having your knee in your chest made breathing not the easiest thing in the world. The boots were a major pain.

            “You mean he was trying to cheat,” Ray confirmed, industriously clearing the table of crumbs. “Good-naturedly. Just to see.”

            He looked at their guests. Kit was grinning, and Nita was – blushing? Hunh. He looked around carefully to see if he’d left anything incriminating out. Nope. Thought about their conversation. Nope. He didn’t think it was them living together, not with what they’d said about their Seniors when they were kids. Maybe the Scotty thing was a workout? Well, the table was clean now. He dumped the rag in the sink and jammed his feet in his shoes. Fraser finished tying his special knots in his laces.

            “Shall we? Thank you very much, by the way, for coming to collect us,” he said, standing. “Ah – is there something we should do?”

            “Not really, your father kindly filled out both your forms.” Nit said. “I hate forms. So I thought you might appreciate not filling them out.”

            “And then we checked to make sure the answers made sense.” Kit grinned. “You can look them over, if you like – it’s a good idea. Wizardry and all.”

            “When everyone’s settled, would you mind explaining wizardry in a little more depth?” Fraser inquired. “I would appreciate a greater understanding of the subject.”

            Ray read over his form. It seemed good, although he was a little worried about where Bob got some of the answers. “This says who we’re are?”

             “In a very specific way, yes.” Nita said, and grinned evilly. “Stats sheet. If we were doing something more complex, your form would weigh a few pounds and take a good few hours to work out.”

            Ray shuddered. Like paperwork day at the office. Which Fraser was in charge of, since they were pretending Ray’s handwriting was illegible and his spelling impossible, and okay, it was sort of true, but not completely and he’d survived sterner bosses than Walsh before Fraser and his whiteout came along.

            “Looks fine,” he said. “Fraser?”

            “Everything seems to be in order.” He grabbed Fraser’s hand, and yanked him over for a quick hug. “Ray!”

            “Shut up, you can get the _nonexistent _dirt out of the carpet later. Let’s go!”

            With a rush of air, they all popped out of existence. At least in that space.

  
 

 

            Not that many miles away, Nita watched as Ray, spiky hair abristle with excitement, launched himself in Fraser’s direction and proceeded to poke his arm enthusiastically.

            “Did you see, Fraser, did you see, just _whoosh_ and we were over here, that is so awesome!” Fraser ran a hand over Ray’s hair, and smiled. Nita took a deep breath, and tried not to think about what she’d seen when she touched the table. This new gift was deeply unnerving.

            “It was – a very pleasant experience, Ray.” Nita suspected she was staring, but also suspected that any human being within sight was staring. Fraser’s smile was _mesmerizing_. Kit tapped her shoulder, and when she turned around to look at him, raised an eyebrow. She wrinkled her nose at him. Gilly and Sanders catapulted themselves out the door in a blur of gold and shadow onto the lawn, making a mad dash for Fraser and Ray.

            “Hey, Cela, Rantelly! Rast, you still packing?” she called into the house. “These girls are Fiddler’s Green and John Constantine, known as Gilly and Sanders.”

            Ray got down in the grass, yanked on Gilly’s ears and rubbed Sanders’ side. She wasn’t surprised that he knew exactly where to pet them; he moved like her mother had, a dancer, used to reading the movements of those around him.

            “They’re lovely,” Fraser said admiringly. “Do you think they’d like Dief? He keeps telling me he’s fine with the company he’s found in the city, but I do wonder sometimes if he longs for the companionship of others of, shall we say, equal familiarity with the peculiarities of humankind.”

            “Probably,” Kit replied, cheerful. “I’ve never met a dog Gilly didn’t like, and from what I saw of Diefenbaker, Sanders would probably be all over him. Okay… are you guys good with the program for the moving? I briefed them on how to use their stones, that shouldn’t be a problem, and you’ve got our number.”

            “I think we’ve got it, dude.” He pretended to duck Fraser’s glare. Kit snickered. Nita shook her head slowly as she thwacked him. Before it could degenerate into a game to see how many different ways they could change the intonation of ‘dude’, the door slammed, and she heard the slide and tiny tear of shoes on grass.

            “We’re just about ready to go – Rast’s daughter wet her diaper a minute ago, so…” Rantelly was the librarian. She was going to go live in the same building as Rast and Cela and their families. Her own daughters were long grown and gone, to other planets and other lives; from what Nita had seen, Cela and Rast had filled their places to some extent.

            “Rantelly, Constable Benton Fraser and his partner, Detective Ray Kowalski.” Kit said, introducing them. “They’re going to take you guys down to your new apartments.”

            “It’s a pleasure to meet you, ma’am,” Fraser said, shaking her hand and smiling at her. Even among wizards, it was rare to see such sincerity. Rantelly was obviously charmed. “If you have any difficulties with your life in Chicago, please, don’t hesitate to call us.”

            “Yeah, me an’ Frase, we heard what happened. We’ll get you set up alright, okay? Okay.” Ray grinned at Rantelly, and she grinned right back at him. Nita was only slightly jealous – one thing had become clear over the last day and a half, and that was that Rantelly was a brilliant baker no matter where in the universe she might find herself.

            Cela and Rast came out the door, carrying infants, trailed by their partners, who were loaded down with children and toys. Cela’s partner Eari grimaced, and Nita hurried forward to grab his daughter, who was, from her perch on his shoulder, yanking in an apparently painful way on his hair. Nissa, Rast’s partner, smiled brightly at her. It had only been a few weeks since their planet’s death, but they were all obviously tired of living out of suitcases in other people’s homes.

            “May I?” Fraser asked, and she handed him the child. He made a I Am Being Very Serious Yes I Am face down at the girl. “Ah, thank you.”

            The child giggled. Ray, a few yards away, stared in apparent fascination as Fraser proceeded to make one of the silliest faces Nita had ever seen, much to the little girl’s pleasure. Sanders, sitting by Ray’s side, stared right along with him.

            “Her name’s Alyr,” Eari told him. “Thanks.”

            Nita looked at Ray, and then at Kit. Kit nodded, and between the two of them they managed to herd everyone out the door in the direction of the train station before anyone did anything inappropriate in front of impressionable children.

            Some hours later, they stood watching the last of the refugees trail Ray and Fraser to the station. Miraculously, the two looked almost as fresh as they had been that morning – slightly dirtier, but still energetic and cheerful. It was amazing. She was wrecked, and they’d only had to help everyone get out of the house, and fetch Ray and Fraser back when they were done with each group. Her skin felt grimy with the city’s dirt, and a minor headache was quickly building itself into a full-blown one. Kit wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and dropped a kiss on her ear.

            “Now you have to answer that email about translating the other con,” he whispered, laughing evilly. She stung her tongue out at him, cackled right back, and walked into their blessedly empty house to make a cup of tea. Being a senior was _work_.

            Then again, it was also pretty rewarding.

**Author's Note:**

> *BALLYCUMBER (n.)  
> One of the six half-read books lying somewhere in your bed.


End file.
